


i'm pleased to know you at all

by fuck_the_birds



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Post-Canon, Rare Pairings, Self-Indulgent, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27887341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuck_the_birds/pseuds/fuck_the_birds
Summary: Hope feels like she's been floating since beginning her peaceful new life in Sanctum, but maybe a simple interaction can change that.(canon-divergent ending to s7 where they all ended up on Sanctum in the end and Bellamy and Diyoza are alive)
Relationships: Hope Diyoza/Raven Reyes, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Kudos: 6





	i'm pleased to know you at all

Hope is used to stillness and quiet.

On Skyring, her whole life had been the tranquility of the lake, the peace her mother, and eventually Octavia, so desperately tried to keep intact. Gardening isn’t noisy. Neither were her lessons or sewing or drawing or any of the activities that made up her childhood. 

When the Bridge came, and the only two people in her minuscule world were dragged away from her, it was the loudest thing she’d ever heard.

Dev came after three months of total silence. She’d given up screaming for her mother and Octavia after that first night. She may only have been ten, but her mother and Aunty O had taught her nothing if not to be sensible; she knew, after years of watching Aunty O agonizing over reaching it at the bottom of the lake, that her family was somewhere she would never be able to reach unless the Bridge came to her first. So she allowed the silence to numb her pain and resigned herself to a life of waiting for something that may never come.

When Dev arrived and pulled her out of that suffocating abyss, her first taste of real noise came with him. Not only the sound of his gruff voice when he teased and spoke to her; she’d had that with her mother and Aunty O. Dev brought a new type of sound: the thunk of a knife sinking into a wooden wall, the rush of blood thundering in her ears when he sparred with her; Dev took her into the middle of the woods and and let her scream out the anger that hadn’t stopped roiling in her stomach since her family had been taken. She took the noise Dev gave her and converted it into determination she clung to like a lifeline while they watched the days tick down on his skin. That rang true for the last noise he would ever bestow upon her, that hoarse whisper she now hears every time she lies down to rest: “Save your mother and Aunty O.” 

The noise didn’t stop when Dev died; it only crescendoed, from Bellamy’s screams in the woods for his sister after Hope sent her away to the battle cries of Disciples and Earth people alike. Her hands remained at her sides when the noise was enough to make her want to press them over her ears; she stood by her mother and Aunty O and all of the characters in her Aunt’s stories during the Last War and never once did she tire. Giving up is not in her blood. 

And then all was quiet again, like the years between her family’s capture on Skyring and the Judge awarding the human race more time to find their purpose and make up for years of slaughter and violence never existed. The noise did not fade out; it simply stopped.

Now Hope listens to the lake on a new planet. The Disciples followed the Earth people to Sanctum after Clarke killed their leader, and the human race has spent the months following the Last War shakily finding their footing. It’s like Hope heard Octavia mutter under her breath as they watched Indra and John Murphy group members of different factions together for the rebuilding: “From the ashes, we will rise.”

The suns are rising, too. Hope never took the time to appreciate beauty before arriving on Sanctum; maybe when she was a child, but the past fifteen years have been so focused on fighting to reclaim her life she never realized how little time that had left her to find pleasure in things such as natural beauty until she saw her first sunrise on Sanctum and her breath had caught in her throat at the sight. 

Sunrises are something she’s been holding onto. Despite being surrounded by more people than she had been in her entire life, there’s something missing, an aching hole behind her ribcage. She keeps mostly to herself, unsure of where she belongs in this society patched together of broken people. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her; she has her mother and Octavia, the only two people she thought she needed to be content. She’s even befriended Jordan, who’s like her in ways other people can’t relate to. Yet there’s a feeling of loss she can’t seem to shed every time she wakes to face another day. 

Sunrises dissipate that dark cloud, if only temporarily. This morning, Hope leans against the bannister of her favorite viewpoint in Sanctum, the roof of the tavern. The air is growing crisper by the day-- her mother predicts they are heading into Sanctum’s version of winter, whatever that may be. In the distance, Hope can see people already working in the fields to harvest crops. She puffs out her cheeks, rubbing her hands together and taking one last look at the sky, painted with brilliant oranges and pinks fading into a silvery blue. 

She’s heading down the stairs for some breakfast when a whirring noise explodes across Sanctum and catches her by surprise. 

“Who’s making all that racket?” she asks Bellamy, who’s behind the tavern’s counter helping Blythe-Ann cook something up.

“Who d’you think?” Bellamy grunts, pouring batter onto a sizzling griddle.

Hope bites her lip. She’s fond of Octavia’s brother and found family, but they forget sometimes that she’s new to them, new to this. It’s one of those feelings she shares with Jordan.

Bellamy glances up, sparing her a sympathetic half-grin when he catches sight of her confused expression. “Sorry. For future reference, Raven’s the only one with the audacity to bang metal on metal when most people haven’t even woken up yet.”

“Ah.” Hope nods, ducking her head and continuing down the stairs. “Good to know.”

“Wanna go tell her to shut the hell up before Murphy comes down in his satin pajamas and gives us all shit for it?” Bellamy suggests, making Hope grin.

“Will do.” Hope crosses to the door. “Flapjacks smell amazing, by the way!”

“Thanks, dear!” Blythe-Ann calls after her.

By the time Hope jogs up to the machine shop, the shrill noise has reached ear-grating levels. She grimaces as she enters to see Raven kneeling down by the wheel of her motorbike, drilling into the center. 

“Hey,” Hope says, immediately realizing there’s no way Raven can hear her over the drilling. “Raven!”

The drilling comes to an abrupt stop, leaving Hope’s ears ringing. Raven glances back at her, pushing her safety goggles up on her head. “What’s up, Little Di?”

“Wh--” Hope sighs, folding her arms over her chest. “‘Little Di’? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Raven shrugs, holding onto the edge of the workbench and pulling herself to stand. “The most I know about you is that three months ago you were a fetus. You can’t blame me for having trouble breaking that association.” 

“Three months ago for you,” Hope mutters. Twenty five years for her; her whole life up until now went by in the time it took Raven to blink.

“I know that.” Raven winks at her, eyes catching Hope’s for a moment, like she can sense her discomfort. She clicks her tongue, snapping a finger at Hope. “Let me guess. Murphy’s having a fit over me disturbing his beauty sleep?”

“That’s what we’re trying to avoid,” Hope replies, glancing around the shop. She doesn’t come in here often. There are notes pinned to the wall that appear to be some sort of back and forth between Raven and Emori. One bears words written in bright red ink and circled multiple times reading: “EMORI-- IF I WALK IN ON YOU AND MURPHY HAVING SEX ON THE WORKBENCH  WHERE WE EAT LUNCH ONE MORE TIME I’M CONFISCATING YOUR KEY TO THE SHOP. - Rae”. 

“Damn. I was really looking forward to the look on Murphy’s face.” She walks over, tagging Hope’s arm and pulling her goggles off. She holds them in her hands for a beat, looking down on them with a mixture of fondness and pain. It’s an expression Hope sees a lot of with this group. 

“You okay?” Hope asks, feeling as though she should do something more, touch Raven’s arm or something. But before she can, Raven’s jolting back into motion, hanging the goggles on a hook on the wall. 

“Yeah,” Raven says, huffing out a breath and returning her attention to her bike, though Hope can tell her mind is still elsewhere. “Just got hit with a memory.” 

“Jasper wore goggles,” Hope thinks out loud. 

Raven hums, bending down and cranking a mechanism attached to the bike’s engine. “Octavia tell you all about him too? Figures. They were pretty tight.”

“She told me as much as she could remember about everything,” Hope says, taking a few steps closer to the workbench and trailing fingers along the top of it. She examines the light coat of grime on her fingertips. 

“Been meaning to clean that,” Raven says, and Hope realizes she’s looking back up at her over her shoulder. Even more hair is coming undone from her ponytail than her usual style, curtaining her face. Hope combs her fingers through her own short hair and watches Raven tuck the loose strands behind her ear. It hits Hope that this much eye contact is probably awkward; she shifts her gaze to the side, studying the contraptions and parts and tools scattered across the bench just as Raven says, “What’d she have to say about me?” The question is almost… shy, in a way that catches Hope off-guard. Raven doesn’t sound like she’s fishing for compliments; the question is laced with curiosity, and nervousness, like she’s worried about Hope’s impression of her. 

Hope opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Octavia had said Raven was a mechanic, and probably the smartest person in the remains of the human race, but Hope had mentioned that already to Raven not long after their first meeting. She licks her lips, thinking for a moment. 

Raven recovers before Hope can speak, waving a hand, eyes on the bolt tray she’d been absentmindedly organizing. Hope notices how the pads of Raven’s fingers are stained with motor oil. “It’s cool. I guess your Aunty O and I never really got the chance to hang out, which kinda sucks. She’d probably be a hoot at sleepovers.”

“She is,” Hope says automatically. Her cheeks heat when Raven shoots her a grin, and she feels her own lips tugging into one to match. “Well, she raised me. I don’t know if that counts as a sleepover, but she’s always been a fun aunt… in her own... intense way, I’m sure. I mean, I’ve got nothing to compare it to.” A nervous chuckle forces its way up Hope’s throat. She holds her wrist in her opposite hand, just so her hands had something to do. “Sorry... that probably sounds so weird to you, considering...” 

“Nah, I’m starting to get used to the new Octavia, believe it or not, so that makes sense. She loves you a lot.”

Hope hums. They fall into a comfortable silence. Is Raven waiting for her to fill it? Hope fidgets with her sleeve. Fucking social cues. 

“Uh... how’s the bike coming along?”

It’s like Hope flipped a switch; Raven’s eyes ignite. Hope can tell she’s revving up to launch into telling her all about it, but a groan emits from behind them before she can start.

“Please, please, please, do  _ not  _ get her started on that damn bike again.” Murphy saunters past them into the back, no doubt looking for Emori. “Hope, if I have to listen to her having another nerd-splosion over engines and fuel capacity all throughout breakfast I will personally haul you over one of the palace balconies for getting her started.”

“The bikes are solar powered genius, they don’t run on fuel,” Raven sighs, glancing at Hope. “Sir Highness clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning... or when he was born.”

Hope snorts, but she’s not making eye contact with Raven. Raven follows Hope’s gaze through the open machine shop door and on the palace in the near distance. 

“What’s caught your eye?”

“Oh, nothing,” Hope replies. “Just trying to gauge how high the drop would be from one of the palace balconies.” She fixes Raven with her most mischievous smile.

Something like surprise flickers through Raven’s gaze, chased by warm appreciation. “Huh. I like you.”

The three words adjust something in Hope’s chest. She huffs a breath, standing up straighter and leaning back against the workbench. She tilts her head back slightly as she listens to Raven preface how accelerators function. Raven’s voice is light with excitement, and somehow, Hope feels lighter too. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you read this: am i the only one who think these two would make a super dynamic pairing?? 
> 
> if anyone wants to come talk to me about Hope/Raven (haven?) please do, my tumblr is [bee-thegoodguys](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/bee-thegoodguys)
> 
> also if you wanna donate in exchange for a fic i'm part of t100fic4blm movement (look them up on tumblr, twitter, or instagram for more info!) and i will happily write for most ships
> 
> thanks for reading!


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